The issue of housing is always one of the things that people pay attention to. We as students going to university, finding a place to live has already become a consistent issue we talk about from time to time. Consequently, later when people step into society, housing problems will only become more of an important matter in the long term. Especially in this non-stop city of Toronto in the heart of Canada, housing is always a major concern that you can’t run away from.
Canada has always been known as one of the top counties for its hospitality to newcomers and its diversity in the communities. However, the housing prices in Toronto may not be too ‘welcome’ to immigrants. It is been reported by Toronto Star that:
“In the Toronto area, 40.5 percent of recent immigrants renting apartments were considered unsuitably housed — living with fewer bedrooms than CMHC considers appropriate. ”
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/01/30/ontario-cities-should-build-more-family-friendly-row-house-rentals-cmhc-report-says.html
Now if we turn our focus on the long term run as the chart below shows, the rising pattern of GTA housing price can be clearly seen. The peak was reached on April of 2017. But due to the new regulations of the foreign buyer tax, a significant drop was observed coming to the end of 2016. However, this did not stop the rising of the house prices but only slowed it down as the graph shows. Government and university researchers have done calculations in 2019 that shows that Toronto is experiencing real estate price exuberance(Rherrad et al,1600). In addition, as the prices rise, there are and will be people that are unable to continue to find a place to live. So they would be forced to be homeless which then would further cause more social problems. In 2018, a study has been conducted and the results showed that people with unstable housing are more associated with health issues(Harris et al, 407). Also, finding a job or having a life could be even harder for those people while they are already struggling to have a place to live.
Finally, it can be predicted that as housing prices continue to grow, a long chain reaction will impact the citizens of Toronto in many ways. So it is important that people should address this issue more and the government should take action to alleviate the current housing crisis.
Citations:
Harris, M., Gadermann, A., Norena, M. et al. Int J Public Health (2019) 64: 399. https://doi-org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/10.1007/s00038-018-1167-6
Rherrad, Imad & Mokengoy Bopo, Mardochée & Fotue, Landry. (2019). Is the Canadian housing market ‘really’ exuberant? Evidence from Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Applied Economics Letters. 1-6. 10.1080/13504851.2019.1588941.
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